Tool takes ship temp

Tool takes ship temp

By S.M. Menke

Mar 29, 2002

The Navy is using handheld Psion 5mx computers from Psion Teklogix Inc. of Mississauga, Ontario, to reduce the need for sailor 'rovers' to visit dozens of thermometers in the hottest work areas of destroyers and amphibious vessels.

The temperature-taking is now done by the Automated Heat Stress System, managed by physiologist Jay Heaney of the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego.

'The Navy has a heat-stress prevention program' with rules about allowable heat exposure for work in engine rooms, laundries, galleys and sculleries, Heaney said. Thermometers must be monitored as often as every hour. The work on large vessels consumes up to 5,500 personnel hours per year.

The San Diego center has now outfitted 17 vessels with networked heat-stress monitors that communicate temperature, humidity and heat load to a central command station via RS-485 digital signals. 'The updates come every minute in real time,' Heaney said.